


The Anatomy of a Crush

by seuls94



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Crushes, F/F, Fluff, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-19 17:23:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17605664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seuls94/pseuds/seuls94
Summary: Yerim  has a crush on Sooyoung. The only problem is, Yerim is pretty sure that Sooyoung doesn't even know that she exists.





	1. I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't have school today and i was feeling weirdly productive, so i figured i might as well write something  
> i'm very tired rn and i typed this in the dark so there's a possibility that i missed some typos, so please be forgiving

Kim Yerim is pretty sure that Park Sooyoung doesn’t know she exists.

She proclaims this while dramatically flopping down onto her bed, sending one of her pillows bouncing onto the floor. Her sister, Joohyun, stands in the doorway, staring at the pillow on the floor and sighing.

Yerim sits up abruptly, throwing another one of her pillows at Joohyun. The pillow hits the floor. Joohyun sighs again.

“Why are you sighing? I’m not the one who will never be acknowledged by the love of my life!”

Joohyun closes her eyes and presses two fingers into her temple, massaging gently.

“Yerim,” she starts slowly, “this is the third time we have had this conversation this week. and it's only Monday.” She opens her eyes to see Yerim sitting on the bed with crossed arms, pouting.

“Well, who else am I supposed to talk to about this?”

“Your friends?”

Yerim suddenly jumps off the bed, skipping over to Joohyun and wrapping her arms around her, perhaps a bit tighter than necessary. “But Joohyunie, you’re my friend!”

Joohyun can feel herself struggling to inhale and tries to remove herself from Yerim’s iron grip. “No, I’m your sister. Being your friend would mean that I actively try to spend time with you on my own free will.”

Yerim finally releases her and turns back towards her bed, dragging her feet until she falls face first into bed. “Fine. You can just leave me here until I die then!” comes the muffled cry from Yerim.

Joohyun just shrugs. “Okay.”

Yerim pushes herself up to watch Joohyun make her way back to her own bedroom.

“Huh. I didn’t think she would actually leave.”

Without Joohyun to complain to, Yerim turns to her most trusted confidant, the one who would never expose her secrets or refuse to listen to her. She walks over to her desk and pulls out the journal currently hidden under a pile of papers, mostly homework Yerim had never done. This journal was almost full and would soon join the hidden collection of completed journals from over the years that Yerim has under her bed.

(The only other person who knows about the journals is Joohyun, who had discovered them when searching for a shirt that Yerim had stolen from her. Yerim had come into her room to see Joohyun laughing at ten-year-old Yerim declaring that she was going to marry Kim Taeyeon of Girls’ Generation and promptly swore her to secrecy).

Yerim’s most recent journal had mostly been dedicating to declaring that she would marry Park Sooyoung, but she figured she almost had as much of a chance with Sooyoung as she had with Taeyeon seven years ago.

Sooyoung was just about the most unrealistic crush Yerim could have the misfortune of developing in her school. She was beautiful (Yerim heard rumors she was a model on the side), athletic (captain of the cheerleaders and the dance team), and popular (four time homecoming queen and three time prom queen). She was also in the grade above Yerim, so in all twelve years they had been in the same public school system, they had approximately one interaction, which consisted of Sooyoung smiling at Yerim after she complimented her on the dance team’s win at states last year.

Yerim replayed that moment millions of times, wondering what Sooyoung’s smile meant. Was it a “aww, thank you so much” smile or a “why are you talking to me, I'm smiling so you’ll leave me alone” smile?

Yerim hopes it was the first one. She didn’t think Sooyoung was capable of being rude to anyone, even her.

With her favorite sparkly pink pen in hand, Yerim opens her journal to the next blank page, dates the entry, and begins to spill her feelings onto the page.

_Dear Journal,_

_I think I'm starting to annoy Joohyun with how much I talk about Sooyoung. It’s not my fault she doesn’t know what it’s like to have a crush on someone who doesn’t know you exist. When she was in high school, practically everyone was in love with her, and she and her dumb girlfriend have been together for three whole years now! Okay that’s a lie, Seulgi’s not dumb and they’re actually really cute together. I think I'm just jealous._

_How could I possibly get someone like Park Sooyoung to notice me? We’re not in remotely the same social circles or the same classes, and there’s no way I could ever try to join the dance or cheerleading team without making a complete fool of myself._

_I sometimes wish I didn’t have a crush on her, but it's so hard not to. If she was at least mean, maybe I would be able to ignore how beautiful she is, but she’s the nicest person ever!_

_Oh, well. Maybe I'm just destined to be alone forever._

_Love, Yerim_

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡˚ ⋆˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Yerim wakes up, and immediately wishes she could fall back asleep. The first thing she hears is Joohyun screaming at her to wake up or she would leave without her, which is really the last thing she wants to heat. The second thing she hears is the vibration of her phone every couple seconds, which wakes her up faster than anything Joohyun could yell.

Yerim blindly fumbles around for her phone in her bed, finding it had been buried under her pillows at some point during the night.

She turns on the home screen, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the sudden light before she can make out the texts she just recieved.

 _Messages 1m ago_  
_Son Seungwan_  
_Hey Yerim! Do you still have a free period_  
_this semester where you could tutor? If you_  
_can, meet me in the math office this_  
_morning so I can talk to you about it!_  


Yerim lets out a groan after reading the message. When Seungwan had asked for students to volunteer to tutor, she had done so out of courtesy, but thankfully they ended up not needing her. She wishes she could tell Seungwan no, but she did have a free, and tutoring would look good on her college applications.

Yerim reluctantly opens her messages and confirms with Seungwan that she would meet her before school.

“Yerim! If you’re not ready to leave in ten minutes, I can’t drive you! Do you really want to walk to school?”

Yerim shuts her phone off and jumps out of bed, rushing around her room to find any clean clothes. “Ugh, I’m coming!” She yells back, pulling on the first gray sweatshirt she sees and a pair of jeans.

Rushing downstairs, Yerim runs into the bathroom and brushes her teeth for a time that is definitely shorter than what is recommended. She almost trips running into the kitchen, past a entertained-looking Joohyun, as she frantically shoves binders and notebooks into her backpack.

“Would you like some help?” Joohyun asks, smirking. Yerim pauses her effort of putting on her shoes without the use of her hands while packing up her lunch to glare at Joohyun.

“I’ve got it, thanks.”

Joohyun just shrugs and puts her jacket on, heading towards the door. “I’ll be in the car. If you’re not out in one minute, I’m-”

“Yeah, you’re leaving without me, you’ve only said it a hundred times this morning!”

“Then hurry up!” Joohyun exclaims, walking outside.

Yerim finally manages to close her backpack despite everything inside of it and swings it onto her back, foregoing a coat to save time. The March weather was finally getting tolerable and Yerim figures she could survive in only a sweatshirt.

She quickly makes her way outside, locking the door, before she runs to Joohyun’s car, sliding into the passenger seat and slamming the door shut. “Okay, I’m here, you can drive now,” she huffs out, slightly out of breath.

Joohyun’s hands stay firmly locked on the steering wheel, the car in park. “You need to buckle your seatbelt first, Yerim.”

Yerim groans before pulling her seatbelt across her body as roughly as she can, and jamming it into the buckle. “Are you happy?”

Joohyun gives Yerim a grin before backing out of their driveway and heading towards her school. “I think that was the most agressively I’ve ever seen someone buckles a seatbelt. You should get some kind of award for that.”

“Haha, you’re so funny Joohyun. Why did you even bother going to college when you could have just become a comedian?” Yerim deadpans, sitting back in her seat and crossing her arms.

Joohyun glances at Yerim before locking her gaze on the road, turning onto the main road. “What’s got you in such a bad mood this morning? Still pining over the ‘love of your life’?”

Joohyun doesn’t take her hands off the wheel to make air-quotes, but Yerim can feel them in her voice.

“Well, I wasn’t even thinking about Sooyoung, but now that you brought her up I’m going to be even sadder today.”

“So, what were you thinking about?”

Yerim sighs and opens her phone to check the rest of the messages she got while she was asleep. “It’s nothing really, Seungwan just asked if I could tutor someone during my free period.”

“That’s not too bad, it’ll look good on college applications. And it’s not like you even study during your free, the only thing you’ll have to give up is watching Netflix during school.”

Yerim can’t help but get offended, even though everything Joohyun just said is true. “Hey, my Netflix time is very valuable to me. It’s the only thing that gets me through the school day.”

Joohyun can’t help but laugh as she pulls into the school, stopping outside of the main entrance for Yerim to get out.

“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, I’m going over to Seulgi’s later, so I won’t be able to drive you home.” Joohyun says, rolling down the passenger’s window after Yerim shuts the door.

Yerim’s jaw drop. “Does that mean I’m going to have to take the bus?” she groans loudly, drawing stares from the other students walking by.

“Or you could walk home. Either one works for me.”

“Of course either one work for you, you’re not the one who has to do them! I can’t believe my sister, my own flesh and blood, is abandoning me to go make out with her girlfriend! Do I mean nothing to you, Joohyun?” Yerim exclaims, throwing her hands up in the air for good measure.

Joohyun just shakes her head and eases her foot onto the gas pedal. “Bye, Yerim.”

“Goodbye, traitor!” she calls after the car, and turns around to march into school.”

Yerim enters the school and immediately regrets not putting headphones in beforehand to block out the clamoring of hundreds of students gathered in the lobby before the first bell rings. Luckily, the math office is close by, and she quickly makes her way inside, weaving through the groups of students clustered throughout the halls.

Seungwan is waiting for her, with a smile way to bright for 8:00 in the morning as she beckons Yerim over.

“Hi Yerim!” she says enthusiastically, “I’m so happy you were available to tutor. I ended up working on an independent study, so now I don’t have a free period to tutor.”

“Oh yeah, it’s no problem!” Yerim lies, using the same voice she uses at work when dealing with customers, “I would love to help tutor!”

Seungwan reaches over and wraps Yerim in an unexpected hug, who stands as still as possible and bring up one hand to gingerly pat Seungwan’s back.

“I knew I could count on you! So there’s only one student I need you to tutor, during last period on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She just needs help with precalc, which should be fine for you because you took it last year, right?” Seungwan only stops talking for one second to check for Yerim’s affirmative nod. “Does that work for you?”

Honestly, Yerim hates precalc with a passion and would love to go the rest of her life without having to think about it, but she can’t say no to Seungwan’s enthusiastic smile. “Yeah, that’s fine. Can I just ask, who am I tutoring?”

Seungwan smiles even wider, if that was possible, “Oh, of course, how could I forget that? Do you know Park Sooyoung?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im projecting my hatred for precalc on to yerim  
> much love to anyone who read the whole thing, i appreciate you  
> if you enjoyed this, feel free to comment and give me motivation to write more. or just comment whatever you want, i'll take what i can get


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all... i am absolutely floored by the response that the first chapter got, i was not expecting that many comments but i am so happy that people liked the first chapter. i wanted to get this chapter done by wednesday, but i surprisingly had no homework tonight so i was able to finish it up today. hope you like it!

Yerim feels like she’s in a trance going through the rest of her day. Her body moves on autopilot, walking to each class, taking notes, and solving problems, but her mind is anywhere but school. All she can think about is how in approximately 52 minutes she will be talking to Park Sooyoung for the second time in her life.

_Oh my god_ , Yerim thinks, _I’m going to be talking to Park Sooyoung_.

It’s not like Yerim hasn’t thought about talking to Sooyoung before, but every conversation has been played out in the shower, with Yerim able to plan out everything that either of them said, and redo anything she thought sounded dumb. There are no redos in real life.

“Yerim? Yerim! Have you even written your name on the test yet? Get to work!” Mr. Lee barks out. He was Yerim’s history teacher, and looks old enough to have been alive during everything he taught about. He hates every student in the school, and they all feel the same way about him. Yerim wasn’t sure why he even wanted to continue teaching, but maybe he enjoys ruining teenages’ lives. It wouldn’t be surprising. 

Yerim finally snaps out of her train of thought, looking at the angry face of Mr. Lee in front of her and back at the blank packet of paper in front of her. The words “FINAL UNIT TEST: Early Nineteenth Century” stare back at her.

“We have a test today?” 

Mr. Lee drops his forehead into his palm, letting out a deep sigh. “Just start working, Yerim.”

Yerim spends the remaining 48 minutes of class trying to remember anything she learned in history this year and forget about the tutoring session for now (It doesn’t work).

At the shrill ringing of the bell, Yerim hands her test back to Mr. Lee with a tentative smile, which he doesn’t even attempt to return. She packs her backpack up slowly, arranging her notebooks in color order and organizing stray pieces of paper, trying to prolong the time before she meets Sooyoung for as long as possible. 

Walking slowly in the hallways is near impossible with the amount of other students trying to frantically make it to classes on the other side of the school within five minutes, but Yerim tries her hardest. The distance between her history classroom and the math office suddenly seems so much shorter when she’s willing time to slow.

The math office is quiet, empty save for one teacher grading at their desk, who doesn’t even look up when Yerim enters the room. She sits down at a table next to the window, organizing and reorganizing the supplies laid out. Textbook, pencils, paper, calculator. She’s not sure what other supplies a tutor would need. Should she have asked a math teacher for a practice test, or made up problems to work on? Maybe it would have been a good idea to review the material a little more, Yerim doesn’t think that she remembers everything from precalc that well. 

However, she doesn’t even get the chance to open up the textbook when the office door swings open with a loud creak. Yerim jumps in surprise, head whipping towards the door to see Park Sooyoung standing there, in all her glory. 

Sooyoung is even more beautiful up close, long black hair framing the delicate features of her face, wearing a tank top that allowed just a glimpse of her abs, and long legs clad in ripped jeans. Even wearing casual clothes at school, Sooyoung looks ready to walk the runway or model for a photoshoot. As she makes eye contact with Yerim, she brings up her hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and Yerim swears the entire world moves in slow motion. 

But the world suddenly comes to a screeching halt as Sooyoung walks over to Yerim, her hand outstretched and a smile growing on her face.

“Hi! I’m Sooyoung, and you must be Yerim,” her voice bubbly and energetic. Yerim only stares at her for a moment before slowly nodding her head and returning the handshake. Oh god, she hopes her hands aren’t sweaty. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” Yerim hopes she sounds more calm and collected than she feels, “I’m Yerim.” 

Sooyoung giggles and brings up a perfectly manicured hand to cover her mouth, “I know that.”

“Oh. Right,” Yerim feels her cheeks flush and looks back down at the papers in front of her. How does she manage to mess up just introducing herself?

Sooyoung pulls out the chair next to Yerim and sits down, pulling her materials out of her backpack. “Just to let you know now, I’m totally hopeless at math. My parents wanted me to take honors classes this year so it would look better on my college applications, but it’s hasn’t been going well at all.”

“What do you have in precalc right now?”

Sooyoung sighs, “71. I know it’s not too bad, but I need to finish the quarter with at least a 75 in all my classes to stay on the dance team and cheerleading.”

“Okay,” Yerim thinks out loud, biting her lower lip, “We should be able to get your grade back up if you do pretty well on the next couple quizzes. What do you have coming up?”

Sooyoung pulls out a packet from her folder and hands it over to Yerim. “This is the review for a quiz on Friday.”

Yerim flips through the blank pages, noting the types of problems and difficulty of the packet. “We can work through this together today, it’s not that long so we should be able to get through at least one of each type of problem before the period ends. Is there anything specific you’re having trouble with?”

“Uh… everything?” Sooyoung says with a sheepish smile.

Yerim lets out a small laugh and turns back to the first page of the packet. “That’s okay, we can review everything today. I had a lot of trouble with precalc last year, so I just had to study more outside of class. You’ll be able to get the hang of it.” 

She hands the packet back to Sooyoung and opens up her textbook to the correct unit, quickly reading over the basic information before she begins to explain the problem. Sooyoung follows along diligently, solving each equation and writing notes in the margin of her papers as Yerim speaks. They spend the rest of the hour in this manner, and soon half of the review is understood by a very excited Sooyoung.

“I think we’ve done enough for today,” Yerim says, checking how long they have before the bell. 

Sooyoung lets out a sigh of relief and leans back in her chair. “Thank you so much for helping me, Yerim. I’m so glad you had time to tutor me.”

Yerim is momentarily frozen. Park Sooyoung is thanking her. Park Sooyoung is happy that she could do something with Yerim (albeit, it is for a something that benefits Sooyoung, but Yerim is going to let herself ignore that part). 

“Yeah, it’s no problem,” she finally blurts out, “I’m glad that you needed to be tutored.” Yerim mentally hits herself, who tells someone they’re glad they need help with a class? Sooyoung is totally going to hate her now-

Her train of thought is cut off by Sooyoung letting out a loud laugh, loud enough that the math teacher in the corner of the room finally looks up from his work to glare at them. 

“You’re pretty funny, Yerim,” Sooyoung says once her laughs have died down. “How have we never hung out before?”

How is Yerim supposed to respond to that? “Uh, it’s probably just because we’ve never had any classes before.”

Sooyoung shrugs in agreement and takes out her phone, opening it to a new contact screen. “You should give your number in case we need to change what time we meet, or I just need more help outside of school.”

Yerim takes the phone and types in her number, the name _Kim Yerim_ already filled in. As she presses save, the final bell rings, signaling the end of the day, and the two girls step into the hallway, joining the stampede of students trying to get out of the school as soon as possible.

“I’ll text you later so you have my number, okay?” Sooyoung says while responding to the messages she had received during the last period. She somehow manages to navigate the hallways without any trouble even while looking directly at her phone. Yerim begins to say goodbye once they reach the main entrance of the school, where the sidewalk forks off towards the buses or the student lot.

“Are you taking the bus home?” Sooyoung asks, finally looking up from her phone.

Yerim nods, a little embarrassed that she still has to take the bus as a junior. “My older sister usually picks me up, but she can’t today, so I’m stuck on the bus.”

“I can drive you home, if you want.”

What has Yerim’s life become? Only yesterday was she whining to Joohyun about how Sooyoung didn’t even know who she was, and now she was getting a ride home from her. 

“I’m technically not legal to drive anyone except for my siblings for like three more weeks,” Sooyoung explains as they get into her car, “but I doubt we’ll be getting pulled over, so it’ll probably be fine.”

That confession doesn’t do much to reassure Yerim, but she isn’t exactly going to reject the ride at this point, so she just buckles her seat belt and hopes for the best. 

Sooyoung adjusts the temperature and plugs her phone into the AUX, scrolling through her music as they wait for someone in the line of cars to let them out. Yerim isn’t really sure what to do with herself, and just fidgets with her hands as she observes the students running through the parking lot, the sound of horns filling the air. Sooyoung rolls her eyes at the abrupt honking as she finally settles on a song.

“Nobody at this school understands that honking is going to do absolutely nothing to get you out of the lot faster,” Sooyoung complains glaring at the offending drivers. 

“This whole parking lot stresses me out,” Yerim confesses as the line of cars slowly begins to move, “I feel like nothing good can happen with five hundred inexperienced drivers trying to leave before the others.”

Sooyoung slowly begins to pull out of her parking spot, nodding her head as Yerim speaks. “Yeah, I know what you mean- HEY, I WAS ABOUT TO PULL OUT!” she yells after the car that just cut her off. 

“This is exactly what I was talking about,” Yerim giggles.

Sooyoung turns towards her with a apologetic smile. “Sorry about that, my mom says my competitive spirit has negatively fed into my road rage.”

They make it out of the parking lot without any further incident and Yerim begins to give Sooyoung directions to her house. The weather has finally begun to turn favorable, and they roll down the windows half-way, letting in the warm spring breeze. The pair makes small talk about anything during the drive, Sooyoung asking about the classes Yerim is talking and Yerim inquiring about the progress of Sooyoung’s athletics. 

After about ten minutes, Sooyoung pulls up outside of Yerim’s house still retelling a very animated version of what happened during the last dance practice as Yerim laughs at her impersonations. 

“Thanks for driving me,” Yerim says while gathering up her backpack.

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Sooyoung says, turning the music down slightly. “I actually live on the next street over, so I could totally drive you again if your sister is busy.”

Yerim closes the car door and leans down towards the open window. “I will probably have to take you up on that offer,” she grins. 

She waves at Sooyoung one last time before turning away and walking to her front door. As she unlocks the door, she hears Sooyoung scream, “SEE YOU ON THURSDAY!” Yerim gives a thumbs up and and waves until Sooyoung’s car has left her vision.

As soon as she steps in the door, Yerim drops everything on the ground and runs upstairs as fast as humanly possible. Without Joohyun home, Yerim has no one to scream too except for her journal, which still sits on her desk. She slides into the desk chair, almost rolling it into the wall, and begins to write.

_Dear Journal,_

_I have no idea how this happened, but I might be friends with Park Sooyoung now? Yes, the same Park Sooyoung that I may have had a crush on for the past couple years. It’s complete luck that we met, Seungwan was supposed to tutor her but she didn’t have free time, so she asked me. I didn’t even know Sooyoung would be the person I was tutoring when I agreed to do it!_

 _Sooyoung is seriously the nicest person ever, she offered to drive me home, even though we had just met an hour ago_ and _she asked for my number! She did say she wanted it in case we have to change the tutoring schedule, but I’m going to ignore that part._

_I really hope that I didn’t seem obvious about liking her, I tried to be as normal as possible, but let’s be real, I have no idea how to talk to people. She didn’t seem like she noticed, but maybe she’s just being nice so she doesn’t hurt my feelings._

_Ugh, I don’t know what to think about this whole situation. Joohyun better come home soon so I can rant to her about it._

_Love, Yerim_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone wants to comment again i would like that very much. feel free to even just tell me about your day. lets chat


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